Home Site Redesign 2013-14

The University of Minnesota home site is the main point of entry to the U for millions of visitors every year. The site serves as a resource and directory to networked information that is created or maintained by University colleges, departments, and units.

The last major redesign of the site was in spring of 2010. As technology continues to change and improve, the U’s main website must be poised to take advantage of technologies that allow visitors to have a rich and intuitive initial impression. The recently launched UofM mobile home site was a first step in a larger plan to reinvent the site and accommodate new and emerging technologies.

Early in 2013, University Relations began the redesign process for the home site. It quickly became clear that we would be more successful in our efforts by shifting our timeline and collaborating with the Enterprise Systems Upgrade Project and, specifically, the Enterprise Portal Project.

A responsive, redesigned University of Minnesota home site is now scheduled to launch in late 2014 along with the Enterprise Portal.

Project Goals

Give UofM home site visitors information they want and can use through a user-centered design process.

Reintegrate our separate audience home pages into one home page that serves all audiences, with external audiences as our priority.

Combine best practices with current and desirable website features.

Enhance content findability with an updated search.

Continue to reflect the University’s mission of education, research, and outreach.

Provide a satisfying experience from anywhere, on any device, in the context users require.

Feedback

Your feedback during this process is important to us. And you can decide how you’d like to provide it.

If you’d like to answer some specific questions (which is most helpful to us as we try to tackle specific issues), as well as have the option to tell us what’s on your mind, please take 5 minutes to fill out our feedback form.

If you’d like to give use your input via email, please send a message to urweb@umn.edu.